July 11, 2012

Giovanni Battista Lusieri is famous to many as the artist employed by Lord Elgin, who was instrumental in the process of removal of the marbles from the Parthenon.

Originally, Lord Elgin had considered a number of possible artists for his trip – one of who was the (then not so famous & therefore deemed unsuitable for the role) J M W Turner. Lusieri ended up with the job & produced many sketches & paintings of the Parthenon both before & after the removal of the marbles. He stayed in Athens long after Lord Elgin had left & all of the works from this period were unfortunately lost at sea, when the ship carrying them, the Cambria, was wrecked off the coast of Crete in 1828.

A new exhibition looks at some of his other paintings which have survived however – from this one might get an idea of how the works made in Athens would have looked.

This is the first show devoted to the once sought-after painter of monuments and volcanos

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April 23, 2012

Scotland regularly makes demands for the Lewis Chessmen to be returned from the British Museum – to Edinburgh. It tends to take a different approach though to cases that are entirely within the country – it becomes a cases that any location is good enough for the artefact, as long as it is in Scotland.

SHETLAND MSP Tavish Scott has accused the Scottish government of hypocrisy over the St Ninian’s Isle treasure.

During Parliamentary Question Time at Holyrood, Mr Scott quizzed culture secretary Fiona Hyslop on the SNP government’s call for the Lewis Chessmen to be returned to the western isles from the British Museum.Read the rest of this entry »

September 21, 2010

An interesting article about the Lewis Chessmen – although by my count there are nine facts in their list, not ten. Some of the points (such as the fact that there is no basis for their repatriation) are somewhat contentious however.

Ten things you didn’t know about the Lewis Chessmen
By Malcolm Jack
Thursday, 24 June 2010

The Lewis Chessmen Unmasked exhibition in Edinburgh brings together the British Museum and the National Museum of Scotland’s collections of the Lewis Chessmen – a set of medieval gaming pieces, originating most likely from Trondheim in the 12th or 13th century, which were discovered on the Hebridean island of Lewis sometime between 1780 and 1831.

Individually hand-carved from walrus ivory, and numbering 93 pieces in total – 82 of which are held by the British Museum, the remaining 11 by the National Museum of Scotland – the Lewis Chessmen are world famous for their mysterious origins, unique design and curious, almost comical expressions, which range from moody kings to a frightened-looking warder biting down on his shield. They even made a cameo in the film Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone.Read the rest of this entry »

IN BRAVEHEART, our national hero is impersonated by an Australian. He paints his face like a football fan and seems to have had Billy Connolly as a voice coach. But if that is a travesty of Wallace, the portrayal of his followers as uncouth, unkempt and unwashed is worse. Sadly, however, when they appear in film, our ancestors are generally represented as wild men from the woods, a bunch of hairy bikers strayed from Mad Max, the film in which it was no doubt Mel Gibson’s performance that led someone to imagine he was qualified to play Wallace. That’s not flattering.

The exhibition at the National Museum of Scotland devoted to the Lewis Chessmen should dispose of the hairy biker myth, however. Much of our medieval heritage has been destroyed, but what survives makes it clear that the Scots, Lowland and Highland, were as sophisticated as anybody else in northern Europe. As elsewhere, wealth was largely in the hands of the crown, the church and the aristocracy, but all saw art as a means to prestige, patronage, comfort, or pleasure. The chessmen belonged to this world, but their exact origin is a mystery. It seems most likely they were found in or near the parish of Uig in Lewis around 200 years ago. They first appear on the record in an article in The Scotsman in 1831.Read the rest of this entry »

November 3, 2008

Edinburgh’s copy of the Parthenon is going to undergo restoration. It is interesting, that what starts as a mere copy can become a monument important enough to be seen as an entity to be restored in its own right – what started as a clone attains an identity of its own. The works will be on a somewhat smaller scale though the Acropolis restoration in Athens.

Greece offers relics for Marbles swap
Athens of the North to host a major exhibition of classical relics … if British Museum agrees to hand Elgin statues back to Olympic city
By Liam McDougall Arts Correspondent

EDINBURGH will be granted a major exhibition of priceless Greek treasures if Britain agrees to a controversial deal to allow the return of the Elgin Marbles to Athens.

Sources close to talks between the British and Greek governments have said the Scottish capital – dubbed the Athens of the North – has been earmarked by Greece as the host city for the event under new compromise proposals.Read the rest of this entry »